• 2012 (PG-13) German disaster taskmaster Roland Emmerich (Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow) destroys the entire world in his newest lowest-common-denominator blockbuster. 2012 uses the conspiracy-theorist wet-dream of the Mayan calendar’s predicted Earth expiration date—Dec. 21, 2012—as the springboard for the biggest disaster picture ever. This audacious, awful flick makes Emmerich’s last cinematic sermon, The Day After Tomorrow, look downright documentarian and artful.
  
• AVATAR (PG-13) On a remote planet, a paraplegic marine, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is promised the use of his legs if he helps the Corporation relocate a race of blue warriors, the Na’vi, whose home is located atop the planet’s richest supply of unobtanium. Jake takes control of a Na’vi/ human hybrid, infiltrating the aliens to learn their ways, but falls in love with them, particularly the chief’s daughter, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), instead. Now Sully must lead the Na’vi against the space marines led by General Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), a scarred hulk of a military man.
  
• THE BOOK OF ELI (R) The Book of Eli made it onto my most wanted list for 2010 based solely on its resemblance to Fallout 3, the greatest videogame I have played in years. In a postapocalyptic wasteland, one man (Denzel Washington) must protect a sacred text with the secret to saving mankind while crossing the dangerous country. The Hughes Brothers (Menace II Society, From Hell) can be hit or miss. Hopefully, Eli is a home run. With Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis.
  
• BROKEN EMBRACES (R) Pedro Almodóvar’s latest film, starring his muse, Penélope Cruz, unfolds like a Hitchcockian telenovela. A deceptively mysterious film—a synopsis cannot quite do it justice. This latest film has finally given me a long-overdue reason to delve deeper into this acclaimed auteur’s back catalog. If, like me, you are behind on your Almodóvar, you will not find any better place to start than here.
  
• CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS (PG) When inventor Flint Lockwood (v. Bill Hader) devises a machine that delivers food, on order, from the heavens, the town of Chewandswallow rejoices. Kids will too, as Judi and Ron Barrett’s 1978 children’s classic comes to life on the screen. Parents, especially those who had to sit through July’s G-Force, won’t be disappointed either. The animation resembles every other high profile CG feature, but the 3D is top-notch.
  
• CRAZY HEART (R) Jeff Bridges is being positioned for his fifth Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of hard-living country music singer Bad Blake. After a string of bad marriages, alcoholic Bad gets one last shot, thanks to a younger woman, journalist Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal). He also begins to mentor up-and-coming country music sensation, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell). Robert Duvall also stars in filmmaker Scott Cooper’s directorial debut, adapted from the novel by Thomas Cobb.
  
• CRAZY ON THE OUTSIDE (PG-13) Tim Allen’s directorial debut sounds like a comic remake of 2008’s wrenching I’ve Loved You So Long. Allen stars as Tommy, a recent parolee who moves in with his sister (Sigourney Weaver) and her family. How does the fam explain Tommy’s absence to grandma? They tell her that he’s been in France, naturally. The rest of the cast—Julie Bowen (“Modern Family”), Ray Liotta, J.K. Simmons, Jeanne Tripplehorn (“Big Love”), Kelsey Grammer and Jon Gries (Napoleon Dynamite’s Uncle Rico)—is funny, if a bit TV heavy.
  
• DARE (R) Three high school seniors—aspiring actress and good girl Alexa Walker (Emmy Rossum, The Phantom of the Opera), her best friend Ben Berger (Ashley Springer, Teeth) and bad boy Johnny Drake (Zach Gilford of “Friday Night Lights”)—become embroiled in an intimate, complicated relationship. The trailer looks kind of CW-y. With Ana Gasteyer, Rooney Mara, Sandra Bernhard and Alan Cumming. Directed by Adam Salky. Nominated for the coveted Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
  
• DEAR JOHN (PG-13) More Nicholas Sparks (The Notebook) and more Lasse Hallstrom (Chocolat) could mean saccharine overload with this tearjerker about a soldier, John Tyree (Channing Tatum), who falls in love with a gal, Savannah Lynn Curtis (the Amanda Seyfried), while home on leave. But the terrorist attacks of 9/11 cause him to reenlist, an act that puts long-distance strain on their relationship. Thank goodness for Richard Jenkins, whose reassuring presence as John’s distant dad just might be enough to make this drivel tolerable.
  
• AN EDUCATION (PG-13) Teenaged Jenny (Carey Mulligan) comes of age in the 1960s suburban London upon the arrival of David (Peter Sarsgaard), a playboy nearly twice her age. Mulligan is winning raves and positioning herself on the shortlist of potential Oscar dark horses. Director Lone Scherfig also helmed Italian for Beginners and bestselling novelist Nick Hornby (High Fidelity and About a Boy) adapted the memoir by Lynn Barber. Winner of the Dramatic World Cinema Audience Award, Cinematography Award, as well as a Grand Jury Prize nomination from the Sundance Film Festival.
  
• EDGE OF DARKNESS (R) See Movie Pick.
  
• THE EYES OF ME (NR) Formerly titled Keep Your Ear on the Ball, this documentary tracks a year in the life of four blind teens—Chas, Denise, Meagan and Isaac—as they attend the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI) and struggle to fit in, date, prepare for college, and do anything else a teenager does. Director Keith Maitland was the DGA trainee on Woody Allen’s Small Time Crooks and Joel Schumacher’s Tigerland.
  
• EXTRAORDINARY MEASURES (PG) John and Aileen Crowley (a doughy Brendan Fraser and TV’s “Felicity,” Keri Russell) have three lovely kids. Sadly, eight-year-old Megan and six-year-old Patrick have Pompe disease. In his search for a cure, John seeks out Dr. Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford), a researcher who is well-ahead of his colleagues regarding some enzyme replacement gobbledygook. The only truly extraordinary measure about this movie is paying to see something offered daily for free on Lifetime.
  
• FANTASTIC MR. FOX (PG) A lock for a Best Animated Feature nomination come February, the first family film by Wes Anderson is also the most genuinely appealing and possibly most human feature the Oscar-nominated auteur has ever dreamed up (with the help of Mr. Roald Dahl, of course). Anderson has crafted—quite literally as the animation is primarily accomplished via stop motion—a glorious storybook world.
  
• FOUND FOOTAGE FESTIVAL (NR) The Found Footage Festival returns to Athens. This collection of random, hilarious home movies, training videos, ill-advised PR stunts and more—discovered by curators Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher (The Onion and "Late Show with David Letterman") at garage sales, thrift stores, warehouses and dumpsters nationwide—will make your week, guaranteed. Recommended for anyone jonesing for MST3K –style laughs. I was only able to see it once, but the FFF still ranks as one of the funniest experiences of my life. Do not miss this event.
  
• FROM PARIS WITH LOVE (R) Pierre Morel, who directed Taken, the surprise winter hit of 2009, puts an extremely game John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers through the frantic action paces as an American spy and an employee from the U.S. Embassy trying to foil a terrorist attack on the City of Lights. The trailer looks incredibly fun; Travolta has not appeared this carelessly appealing since the late '90s. As with Morel’s earlier films, Gallic action auteur Luc Besson shared the writing duties.
  
• FROZEN (R) A trio of snowboarders—Joe (X-Men’s Shawn Ashmore), Parker (Emma Bell) and Dan (Kevin Zegers)—are trapped on a chairlift after the ski resort has shut down for the week. With their lives on the line, the three must decide whether to stay put and freeze or face something potentially more perilous. Writer-director Adam Green previously excited the horror genre crowd with 2006’s Hatchet. His new film sounds Open Water-ish. Kane “Jason Voorhees” Hodder appears presumably as some degree of psycho.
  
• GOOD HAIR (PG-13) Chris Rock is on a mission to answer his daughter’s innocent query, “Daddy, how come I don’t have good hair?” The talented standup comedian travels around the world. He visits Atlanta, Beverly Hills and India. He talks with men and women, celebrities and everyday folk. He confronts beauty care professionals, those in the know and those who think they know.
  
• HAIRSPRAY (PG) 2007. The immensely charming picture is powered by the contagious bounce of big-haired, big-boned lead, newcomer Nikki Blonsky, and songs so catchy you could dance to them. In 1960s Baltimore, Tracy Turnblad (Blonsky) shows everyone some new steps when she integrates homegrown dance program “The Corny Collins Show.” Brimming with optimism, not cynical nostalgia, Hairspray is all smiles.
  
• THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS (PG-13) Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) grants people entry into their own imaginations, where they are offered the choice of redemption or damnation, courtesy of Mr. Nick (Tom Waits), the devil. The sudden appearance of the charming Tony ( Heath Ledger), discovered hanging underneath a bridge, may be what the doctor ordered, as Mr. Nick just offered Doctor Parnassus one final wager. Let the games begin.
  
• IT’S COMPLICATED (R) Writer-director Nancy Meyers (Something’s Gotta Give) returns from The Holiday for another age-appropriate romantic comedy. Divorced Jane (Meryl Streep) embarks on an affair with her ex-husband, Jake (Alec Baldwin), currently married to the younger woman for whom he left Jane. The titular complications arrive in Adam (Steve Martin), an appealing architect Jane is also wooing. The R rating signifies a decided maturity in Meyers’ latest. With Rita Wilson, John Krasinski (“The Office”), Hunter Parrish (“Weeds”) and Lake Bell.
  
• LEGION (R) An early favorite for worst of the year, Legion is all kinds of bad, except sadly, for the kind it takes to be any fun. Apparently, God is fed up with mankind, again, and he tasks his baddest-ass angels, Michael (Paul Bettany) and Gabriel (Kevin Durand), with humanity’s extermination. But Michael has a change of heart and decides to protect man’s last hope, the unborn child of single waitress Charlie (Adrianne Palicki). Holing up in a roadside diner/service station named Paradise Falls with your typical survivors—gruff father and son (Dennis Quaid and Lucas Black), a hook-handed believer (Charles S. Dutton), a quasi-thug (Tyrese Gibson) and a yuppie couple (Jon Tenney and Kate Walsh) and their surly teen daughter (Willa Holland)—the band must tough out an onslaught of the possessed zombie-types until Charlie’s child can be born.
  
• LORDS OF NATURE—LIFE IN THE LAND OF GREAT PREDATORS (NR) 2006. This hi-def documentary examines whether or not large predators—wolves, cougars and the like—are the key to restoring America’s wild ecosystems to full health. Narrated by Peter Coyote, Lords of Nature was an official selection of the American Conservation Film Festival and the Wild & Scenic Environmental Film Festival. Part of the fifth Annual Animal Voices Film Festival, sponsored by UGA’s Speak Out for Species, Students for Environmental Action, and the UGA Law Student Animal Legal Defense Fund Chapter. For more information, visit http://www.uga.edu/sos/filmfest.
  
• THE LOVELY BONES (PG-13) Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) was only 14 when she was brutally raped and murdered on Dec. 6, 1973. She had never even been kissed when her skeevy neighbor, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), lured her into an underground den he had built under a cornfield and took her innocence and her life. Rather than going on to heaven, Susie remains to watch as her family struggles through the lack of closure left by Susie’s disappearance and presumed murder. Readers of the book might be disappointed by everything director Peter Jackson and his award-winning co-writers, Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, leave out, but still, the film is lovely, and several of the performances—Ronan and Tucci, especially—are top-notch.
  
• THE MESSENGER (R) Staff Sergeant William Montgomery (Ben Foster) is a decorated war hero. Upon his return home, he is assigned to the Casualty Notification service. Along with his fellow officer, Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson), Will is tasked with delivering the worst news a soldier’s N.O.K. (next of kin) could ever hear. Will has no desire to do this miserable job but follows his orders like a good soldier would. Eventually, he chafes at the stringent procedures in place and begins comforting the soldier’s families as best he can. However, one of the N.O.K.s, Olivia Pitterson (Samantha Morton), offers a unique challenge as Will finds himself drawn to this widowed mother.
  
• PLANET 51 (PG) Astronaut Chuck Baker (v. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) lands on Planet 51 and finds an alien race paranoid of an alien invasion. He must recover his spaceship with the help of his new alien friend. Three first-time directors—Jorge Blanco, Javier Abad and Marcos Martinez—bring Shrek Oscar nominee Joe Stillman’s script to animated life. This family flick does not look terrible, but it does not much resemble a holiday blockbuster either. Featuring the voices of Jessica Biel, Justin Long, Gary Oldman, Sean William Scott and John Cleese.
  
• SHERLOCK HOLMES (PG-13) Holmes (the never disappointing Robert Downey Jr.) and Dr. Watson (a game Jude Law) must stop evil Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong) from taking over the world through some sinister, supernatural means. A criminal love interest (Rachel McAdams) exists for the great private dick, but the real affection is the bromantic bond between Holmes and Watson. Sparks fly between Downey and Law; they make a great couple.
  
• A SINGLE MAN (PG-13) Strong word of mouth precedes Tom Ford’s drama of an English professor, George (Colin Firth), who tries to go about his normal life after the death of his partner. The cast includes Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode, Ginnifer Goodwin and Nicholas Hoult (About a Boy). Filmmaker Ford fascinates; as a fashion designer, he turned around Gucci. By next year, he could potentially be a multiple award winning writer-director.
  
• THAT EVENING SUN (PG-13) A slow, calculated study of rural aging in the modern South, That Evening Sun is going down on ancient Abner Meecham (Hal Holbrook). Placed in a home by his lawyer son, Paul (Walton Goggins), Abner escapes and returns to his homestead, only to discover that a new tenant has taken over the family farm. Sometimes, genuine Southern movies hit it big; most times the rest of the nation does not connect as deeply. If ever a film deserved wider success, it is That Evening Sun, an exemplar of great, artful cinema that could have been produced by Hollywood yet could only be born and raised in the South.
  
• TOOTH FAIRY (PG) The mere presence of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson means Tooth Fairy will not be the worst family flick 2010 will offer (besides, The Spy Next Door is much worse). Johnson’s powerful magnetism will pull both parent and child through this hour and 40 minutes of silly fluff. Johnson stars as a minor league hockey enforcer, Derek “Tooth Fairy” Thompson, who is sentenced to perform the duties of his nickname after crushing the dreams of his girlfriend’s daughter.
  
• TO SAVE A LIFE (PG-13) A new faith-based movie, To Save a Life seeks the teenage audience that spends all their parents’ hard-earned money at the movies. Jake Taylor (Randy Wayne) has it all. He’s a high school hard-court superstar who has the girl and a college scholarship. But when he can’t save his childhood friend, Roger (Robert Bailey, Jr.), who commits suicide right in front of Jake, the big man on campus risks everything to stop the next Roger from making a tragic decision. Director Brian Baugh was the DP on An American Carol.
  
• WHEN IN ROME (PG-13) Kristen Bell is a young, ambitious New Yorker who has not been lucky in love. All of that changes when she steals coins from a magical fountain in Rome. Now she has more silly suitors—a too tanned, mostly shirtless Dax Shepard; an Italian Will Arnett; Jon Heder the magician; and Danny Devito—than she wants, when all she needs is one, Nick (Josh Duhamel). Romantic comedies that use actual magic as a plot point might be the most insufferable of the romcom sub-genres, and this flick does nothing to sway that long-held belief.
  
• WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE (PG) It is quite impressive what filmmaker Spike Jonze and cowriter Dave Eggers do with Maurice Sendak’s beloved 339 words. They expand upon his wild world, populated by giant-headed monsters and a boy in a wolfsuit named Max (tremendous little Max Records), with the same imaginative recklessness as Sendak.
  
• THE YOUNG VICTORIA (PG) Emily Blunt, who wowed in The Devil Wears Prada, stars as youthful monarch, Queen Victoria, in the turbulent early years of her reign. Rupert Friend stars as her enduring love, Prince Albert.
  

Drew Wheeler